Tag Archive: clouds

Something tells me this should have been either the first or the last yarn I did – but never mind. I’m pleased with it, so I want to show you guys now! I dizzed the batts (what? me, in a fibre prep rut? never!) and stripped some undyed top into narrow pieces about 30cm long – shown with my hand for marginally helpful scale.

Dizzed rovings

Undyed wool top strip for puffs/clouds/coils/whatever the correct term is

As I was spinning the single, I would periodically stop and trap the twist “upstream” of my fingers while I split the fibre supply “downstream”, then insert the undyed strip and let the twist trap it in the single for a little bit, then twist the strip manually and little by little, treadle it onto the single. Then I’d twist it lots more and split the fibre supply again, and insert the end back in. I used about half of each strip for each cloud. Some worked well, some not so well – hey, it was my first go at this technique!

Beware – photo spam.

On the bobbin

I just love the variety and depth of colours in this yarn

There’s just over 100g and 56m in this lovely skein. I think it will knit into a remarkable piece – and it’s soft enough to be a really lovely cowl or slouchy hat. But that’s down the track – for now, it’s an art piece in and of itself and I love it!

It’s Tour de Fleece time at the moment, and I wasn’t wise and made some rookie errors in my planning for the great event. I planned to “get out of the way” a whole heap of “boring” spins, including interminable 3-plies and pounds and pounds of Wensleydale for a rug I’m going to weave. I’ve managed to get myself pretty down in the mouth about it, as things weren’t going according to plan; plus, I really felt the lack of thinking about, keeping up with, and generally plotting for this Project.

So I got home tonight and stood in front of the stash cupboard the way men stand in front of the fridge. You know, when they yell out to you, “Honey, what is there to eat?” while staring at the makings of any number of delicious things. Yep, that was me. All that gorgeous fibre (and I do have a lot, and it is beautiful), and not a yarn to spin.

Until, that was, my eye lit upon the batts I carded a while back, that I posted about on my other blog. They look, to me, like nothing so much as an impressionist landscape; all that blue and brown and green with the floofy white angora highlights.

I simply had to use them to illustrate the Discworld, even though I love the batts and want to keep them for myself (and the PP yarns are destined to be knit into FOs that I ultimately want to sell). Sir Terry’s intros into so many of the books start with “This is the Discworld…” and there is that vivid sense of scale, vastness, scope and perspective, of zooming in and seeing the wondrous sight of a flat world perched on four elephants that stand on a giant space turtle (yes, it will get its turn on the wheel ;)). I really wanted to spin it, and try to do it justice. I hope this has done that.

And just for an extra challenge, I wanted to insert “clouds” by making little twists of undyed top and coiling them around the single. I’m not sure if these are technically called “coils” or what – Jacey Boggs teaches them in her DVD, Sit & Spin, but I just lent that to a friend so I had to try and guess at the technique! I was really inspired by Carrie craftypuppylover‘s “Unicorn Farts” (rainbow yarn with white coils).

Soooo, anyway, after all that – no pics. Srsly, it’s nearly 11pm here and not only am I just Not Equipped Emotionally for camera -> puter -> internet -> blog, I just can’t get a good shot anyway. I’ve got the yarn draped on the heater to try and dry (freezing temps overnight here last night, and I reckon the same will happen tonight, so drying takes a bit of effort) and I’ll try for a good one sometime tomorrow, even if I have to take the yarn to the nice park down the road from my office at lunchtime. Promise. Well, I promise to try.